I’m curious to be able to see which if any of the plants regrows, so if I replant favas directly then I will lose track. I guess it doesn’t matter in theory as the seeds I produce will all get mixed and replanted together, but I’d be curious to know.
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then replant with something else, something that will not contradict the fava. Bush beans ?
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I planted some of my favas in fall as well. They snow didn`t seem to phase them, they looked quite happy. But the snow melting, combined with the strong Föhn and cold night temperature in the last weeks was quite devastating for them. I am not that optimistic for their survival, but we will see!
I have planted Favas 2 or 3 years ago, some very big seeds I got very cheap (for eating) in Turkish shop. They germinated beautifully, but were then absolutely decimated by black bean aphids. Even though they are from a warm climate (the package said grown in Australia), they could not deal with our summer heat.
I tried again with a mix i got from a swiss seedkeeper and wasn’t very lucky either.
I am very motivated to make favas work since they are one of the traditional leguminose crops in the mountains of Switzerland. Maybe the climate has changed enough to make them not an adapted crop anymore. I like ( in theory) that they are as early as peas but don’t need a trellis. I would love to be able to have a very early green bean in in the kitchen.
Dried I only made Hummus from the and liked it. I like versatile plants and it would be great to have a population in which I eat some of the seeds green and keep the rest for seedsaving and dry eating.
I am very inexperienced with them and am still trying to find out the basics. Swiss agricultural institutions say that up to an altitude of 600 meters they can be planted as a fall crop, above they should be treated as aspring crop. So I saved the bigger part of my seeds for spring planting and planted just one litte seed bag in Fall.
Maybe I will experiment with the staggered planting @isabelle talks about, in order to have some plants survive. I think that our springs are too erratic to stick to a fixed routine. Our fall too. You can’t depend on a fixed timetable. because every year is different.
As far as staggered planting is concerned, my attempt this year failed . Only the first sowing passed the birds and slugs predation stages , the two next sowings got eaten after succesfull sprouting, and then I kind lost hope. And then the rain came so it was not a good idea to stamp the wet soil with my boots.
Now weather is improving so I am going to start again sowing…..
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sowed yesterday 100 seeds, in hole of 3 on 3sqmeters surface, with reinforced bird net for bird predation and a broadsow of mustard for slug predation. crossing fingers.
Next series in a week or two.
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Yesterday, I planted the third batch of fava beans. The ones are my little treasures, the most beautiful ones that I absolutely didn’t want to lose with frost.
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really beutifull ! I understand your strategy. What do you do about slugs?
I really wish you full success to multiply those….
I also have planted a batch on the 8th of feb that’s starting to peak up through the mulch and another batch yesterday on march 1st. A mix of your seeds Isabelle with some of Stephane’s, my garden’s offspring of Stephane’s mix, some of what I brought back from Canada, and some Feve d’Auvergne from my local seed exchange association. I counted a total of 5 plants that survived the -7c winter frost from my fall sown batch - all hybrids that I’d saved from summer 2025 from seeds of Stephane’s that I’d planted. They’ll be mixing again with broader genetics this summer.
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absolutely nothing against slugs !
just one thing, I have simplified cultivation practices over the past two years by eliminating winter and spring mulching. My land had too many slugs and the clay soil didn’t warm up quickly enough. I also plant a lot more winter vegetables to cover the ground and let some leaves for the snails to eat. Since then, I’ve had no more problems with seedlings. 
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yeah… I stopped mulching all winter/spring legumes, too, until they are developped enough.
in addition, this ear I sowed some sacrificial mustard…
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I’ve seen a huge difference in slug and snail problems since have Indian runner ducks!
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I planted my first round of broad beans yesterday.
A little later than usually due to me beeing away from home on almost all weekends since mid February.
I have prepared one bed that was fallow and another small section that grew popcorn last year. I added a wheelbarrow of compost, planted a few lots of seeds from last year and watered the seeds with diluted wormbin juice hoping to enrich the microbiome and help the seedlings find microbial partners.
I then covered the beds with wire mesh to protect from predation.
I might side dress with some pelleted cow manure before flowering. Push a pellet or two into the clay soil that I have next to half the plants and see if I can see any difference.
Here are the pix:
Today I want to clean another bed in the back of the garden in a more shaded area. That will then be the extent of my broad bean planting for this year.
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It’s time to start. I have prepared a representative sample of seeds collected in 2025 and I have placed them in a box, on a wet paper towel. Each seed that starts to sprout is being transferred to a separate 8cm pot or a separate cell in seedling tray.
I was hoping for high germnation, but I was surprised that only 2 seeds did not make it.
Now waiting for seedlings to emerge.
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Broad bean seedlings 11 days after planting the germinating seeds in pots, 15 days after “sowing”. With nighttime temperatures near freezing, this is impossible to achieve with direct, in-ground sowing.
By the way, fava seeds I have ordered from Cicada Seeds (Canada) have been seized by the customs 
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I thought that my fava beans were being eaten by birds, but after replacing the flexible net by chicken wire, I had to admit that this year, it was someting else. Then I discovered that field mice are not only root-eaters but also grain-eaters…… Indeed my 300 fava seeds have all been eaten by field mice, including the few beautifull cicada seeds Rachel had send me, grrrrr.
I am left so far with the first series I sowed in november, well developped but not so numerous….
So I just resowed IN POTS some 100 seeds after 48 hours soaking to accelerate germination, and I will transplant them when they are developped enough.
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Everything goes well here in zone 6B:
These are much happier by the south wall, sown the same day like in the previous picture. After trees have leaves, this place is shaded, so it is useless for tomatoes anyway:
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Same here in 8b!
My three and a half beds of mixed spring sown favas. There are seeds all direct sown and from Stephane and Isabelle as well as seeds I brought back from Canada/US from Cicaida seeds and Homestead culture, and some local seeds from the seed share (Feve d’Auvergne).
All but these plants (see photos) died from my fall sowing with a mega frost in January that went down to -7c and lasted around a week. They are flowering now but I hope they will continue long enough to cross with the spring sown batch when they start flowering.
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interesting I never thought about the possibility to have the winter-sown cross pollinate with the spring sown but I remember some years my fava had two flowering sessions .
Did anyone notice that ?
so it could be that the second flowering of the winter fava be sync with the first flowering of the srping fava…
more to observe…
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I intentionally cut back my winter sown favas when my spring sown seeds were germinating last year to force them to regrow so they would flower at the same time. It worked but those plants ended up producing fewer pods per plant. You might be able to accomplish something similar without cutting back stems by harvesting the earliest pods to eat fresh and encourage the plants to keep flowering?
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